


Lion Bonds and Video Chats

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Humor, The Troubling Students of Professor Shirogane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23760325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: It begins with the usual round of scuffing, scratching and background noise. One by one, faces pop up neatly in little tiled rows across the screen, one for every paladin. - The Paladin video chat shenanigans nobody asked for, but the world definitely needs.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Lion Bonds and Video Chats

**Author's Note:**

> May I offer you some Paladin video chat in these trying times? This goes out, with love, to the Whisper server with some special love for **butteredonions**! I love you all, and no matter where you are in the world today, I hope this makes you smile.

It begins with the usual round of scuffing, scratching and background noise. One by one, faces pop up neatly in little tiled rows across the screen, one for every paladin. Shiro pulls his mug of coffee closer and smiles, leaning in a little to peer at their backgrounds to try and get a sense of where they might be in the world this week. This is his favorite time, Friday nights when the gang gets together for what Lance has affectionately called the Beer and Bitch. The beverage isn’t always beer, and it’s not always bitching, but if they’ve been particularly offended by things like Matt’s new haircut or the latest round of Galran diplomacy, no one seems to mind. Sometimes, Keith is with him, but he’s been tied up in some negotiations and relief efforts, so seeing his face on the screen now is a treat, especially alongside the faces of all his other friends. His family, really.

“Keith, c’mon! This is family night, why are you still dressed in your work clothes?” Lance points an accusatory finger at the screen, probably in the spot where Keith’s head shows up in the window. 

Keith crosses his arms, and Shiro discovers he really doesn’t mind the Blade uniform on him. Fits him quite nicely.

“Not all of us can sit around in our day-jamas, Lance.”

Lance opens his mouth to protest, but Pidge beats him to it. “Okay, Shiro, let’s have it!”

Shiro blinks. “Have it?”

“The next installment of _The Troubling Students of Professor Shirogane_ ,” Hunk pipes up. “It’s the highlight of my week.”

“Oh, yes, that.” Shiro can’t help but laugh. His decision to go back to teaching at the Garrison between interstellar conference appearances is his best decision yet, but it comes with a few adventures. “There was a quiz this week.”

All of the others lean in close, and Allura is grinning. She takes the most delight out of tormenting students, a fact which doesn’t surprise Shiro in the slightest, considering the early days of their paladin training. 

“Was it open book?” Pidge asks. 

Allura makes a tsk-ing noise. “It better not have been, you softie!”

“I’m afraid it was…not that it seemed to matter in some cases. I won’t get into the gory details of the next generation refusing to take the source material seriously and faking their way through the test. But, this one was probably the most entertaining.”

A few taps on his datapad’s taskbar, and he shared his screen of a simple test format. The first question, easy enough for anyone who’d so much as skimmed the syllabus, simply had “ah” in the answer box.

“Ah?” Keith ask-read, deadpan.

“Ah,” came the unison reply of everyone else on the screen. Then a chorus of laughter as Shiro clicked through the rest of the questions. 

Every last one of them had nothing but “ah” in the answer box. 

“Soooo…was that a placeholder or an existential crisis?” Lance wonders.

“They’re college students, Lance,” Hunk says, which can mean anything.

Pidge shrugs, her smirk wicked. “Yeah, Lance, you were both of those things in pilot school.”

“Oh come on!” But he’s laughing right alongside them.

“We’ve got three new recruits to the Blade of Marmora,” Keith speaks up, “Kolivan wanted me there this week for their initiation rites. And I think—HEY! Kosmo!”

There’s a whoosh of blue fur, and Keith’s image disappears while his tablet does a half-gainer down to the floor, giving the paladins a perfect view of the purple lowlights set into his ceiling.

“Yes, it’s our friends,” Keith says from a distance…or through a mouthful of fur, it’s hard to tell. 

Kosmo looks down at the datapad with the grid of familiar faces all staring back at him. On cue, they all start waving and telling him hello, which inspires Kosmo to lick all of their pictures on the screen, smearing the image of him to the sound of Keith’s protests in the background. Lance looks a little green around the gills, but he’s laughing too hard about the sheer amount of slobber Keith’s going to have to clean off of his tablet. 

“RIP Keith,” Pidge crows.

All anyone can see is a mass of white curls from Allura’s screen, she’s doubled over laughing so hard. 

“Speaking of, if you guys hear my cat yowling in the background, it’s because we’ve started puzzles at this time during the week, and she’s very confused why we’re not at the table where she can walk all over the pieces and lose them.”

“No way, dude, don’t apologize,” Lance says, “show us the old lady! Is her tongue sticking out?”

“Hold on!” Some muffling and then Hunk is back with a big black and white furball with no teeth and her tongue half stuck out. Shay had fallen in love with her and Hunk couldn’t bear to say no to her. “Here’s Dinah, say hi Dinah!” The cat stares at the screen, unimpressed, and then yowls again.

The conversation devolves into more pets, troubling students and other assorted misadventures. Half the motivation for saving the universe had been the promise of getting back to their lives in one piece. But the reality is that they are tightly wound into each other’s lives now, still sharing a bond strong enough to cross the distance between them. It will always be a need, pulsing deep down underneath the hustle and bustle of their days. To hear each other’s voices, to see faces and smiles, to share laughter and tears. It’s their connection, and these nights are sacred. No one wants to say goodbye at the end, but inevitably, someone dozes off in the middle of the conversation, and they all quietly say good night. 

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr over at [Paladin Puppy Pile](http://paladinpuppypile.tumblr.com). Thank you for reading!


End file.
